Folk Literature & Fable, VAL-ʿAN
Step into the world of folklore, fables, legends, tall tales, and epics, in which heroes are known to undertake arduous journeys and dragons, fairies, and giants abound. Stories such as these circulated long before systems of writing were developed; ballads, folktales, poems, and the like were transmitted exclusively by word of mouth before written languages took over, and they continue to captivate listeners and readers to this day.
Folk Literature & Fable Encyclopedia Articles By Title
Valerius Flaccus, Gaius
Gaius Valerius Flaccus was an epic poet, author of an Argonautica, an epic which, though indebted to other sources,......
Valmiki
Valmiki, an ancient Indian sage who is recognized in the Hindu tradition as the original author of the Sanskrit......
vampire
vampire, in popular legend, a creature, often fanged, that preys upon humans, generally by consuming their blood.......
Vedel, Anders Sørensen
Anders Sørensen Vedel was a Danish historian and ballad collector who translated the Gesta Danorum of the medieval......
Veronese, Paolo
Paolo Veronese was one of the major painters of the 16th-century Venetian school. His works usually are huge, vastly......
Victor, Geraldo Bessa
Geraldo Bessa Victor was an Angolan lyric poet whose work expresses the dream of racial harmony and the need to......
Vigfússon, Gudbrandur
Gudbrandur Vigfússon was one of the 19th century’s foremost scholars of Old Norse, who completed the Richard Cleasby......
Virgil
Virgil was a Roman poet, best known for his national epic, the Aeneid (from c. 30 bce; unfinished at his death).......
Vulgate cycle
Vulgate cycle, group of Arthurian romances in French prose, dating roughly to 1210–30. Traditionally attributed......
Vyasa
Vyasa was a legendary Indian sage who is traditionally credited with composing or compiling the Mahabharata, a......
Väinämöinen
Väinämöinen, in Finnish folklore, a central figure of many ancient mythological songs and a culture hero to whom......
Vǫlsunga saga
Vǫlsunga saga, most important of the Icelandic sagas called fornaldarsǫgur (“sagas of antiquity”). Dating from......
wendigo
wendigo, a mythological cannibalistic monster in the spiritual tradition of North American Algonquian-speaking......
werewolf
werewolf, in popular legend, a human who can shape-shift into a wolf or a hybrid wolf-human form. In many werewolf......
White, T H
T. H. White was an English novelist, social historian, and satirist who was best known for his brilliant adaptation......
Wilde, Oscar
Oscar Wilde was an Irish wit, poet, and dramatist whose enduring fame rests on his only novel, The Picture of Dorian......
Wolfdietrich
Wolfdietrich, Germanic hero who appears in the Middle High German poems of Ortnit and Wolfdietrich in Das Heldenbuch......
Wyss, Johann Rudolf
Johann Rudolf Wyss was a folklorist, editor, and writer, remembered for his collections of Swiss folklore and for......
Yamato Takeru
Yamato Takeru, Japanese folk hero, noted for his courage and ingenuity, who may have lived in the 2nd century ad.......
Yorimitsu
Yorimitsu, one of the most popular of the legendary Japanese warrior heroes and a member of the martial Minamoto......
Ysopet
Ysopet, in French literature, a medieval collection of fables, often versions of Aesop’s Fables. The word Ysopet......
Zwarte Piet
Zwarte Piet is a character in Dutch folklore who serves St. Nicholas (in Dutch, Sinterklaas) in St. Nicholas Day......
Ōkuninushi
Ōkuninushi, in the mythology of the Izumo branch of Shintō in Japan, the central hero, a son-in-law of the storm......
ʿAntar, Romance of
Romance of ʿAntar, tales of chivalry centred on the Arab desert poet and warrior ʿAntarah ibn Shaddād, one of the......